Vegan Yum Yum (3 page)

5 tablespoons water

cup oil

1 cup fresh blueberries
*
(see note below about using frozen blueberries)

Cooking oil spray for the waffle iron

Lemon Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar

2 to 4 tablespoons soy milk

1 teaspoon lemon juice

Zest of ½ lemon

*
Note: If using frozen blueberries, keep them in the freezer until the last second. Reserve 1 to 2 tablespoons of the dry mixture. When you're ready to add the blueberries, take them out of the freezer, measure them, and mix them with the reserved dry mixture. Then fold them into your mixed batter in no more than three folds. This will prevent your batter from turning a gray-purple color.

Breakfast Sandwiches

W
ith a little creativity, you can have a fresh, savory breakfast sandwich again. Fluffy tofu-egg and maple soy tofu piled on fresh biscuits is sure to make your morning brighter.

Breakfast Sandwiches

Makes 8 sandwiches

If you don't have time to make the biscuits, you may substitute premade English muffins.

Biscuits

step 1
Preheat the oven to 475 ºF.

step 2
Mix flour, baking powder, soda, and salt together.

step 3
Cut the margarine and shortening into the dry mixture with a pastry cutter or a fork until crumbly.

step 4
Add the soy milk into the above mixture until just combined.

step 5
Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into 1-inch thickness.

step 6
Using a biscuit cutter, cut out circles of dough and place them on a parchment-covered baking sheet so that the rounds are touching. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

Tofu Eggs

Cook the tofu eggs and maple soy tofu during the time it takes for the biscuits to bake.

Ingredients

Biscuits:

2¼ cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons Earth Balance margarine

2 tablespoons shortening

1 cup soy milk plus 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Tofu Eggs:

1 12-ounce package Firm Aseptic Silken Tofu

5 tablespoons soy milk

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast

1 tablespoon olive oil

teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon tahini, scant

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch

teaspoon baking powder

Vegetable oil for heating in pan

Maple Soy Tofu:

1 14-ounce block of water-packed tofu, pressed
(see next page for instructions)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

3 tablespoons maple syrup

Pressing Tofu 101

My favorite method for pressing tofu: Pour off all excess water. Wrap the tofu in two paper towels. Then wrap the tofu in a terry cloth kitchen towel. Place a cast-iron skillet on top (or anything else that's flat and heavy and can get wet) and let it sit for 20 minutes or longer. After 20 minutes, the towel should be soaked through and the tofu nice and firm. The paper towel just protects the tofu from any lint or, um, cat hair that might be on the towel.

step 1
To make the tofu egg, mix the tofu, soy milk, yeast, olive oil, salt, tahini, mustard, cornstarch, and baking powder in a blender or food processor and blend well. The mixture should be very thick, but still blendable.

step 2
Heat a nonstick skillet (the batter will stick to anything else!) with a few teaspoons of vegetable oil in it.

step 3
Pour
cup of the batter into the hot pan, using a rubber spatula to gently spread the batter into a thin pancake. When beginning to brown, flip gently and cook on the other side. Continue to cook the tofu egg “pancakes”; stack and set aside.

Maple Soy Tofu

step 1
To make the maple tofu, press the moisture from the block of tofu and slice it into 10 thick rectangles.

step 2
Cook in an ungreased, nonstick skillet until brown on both sides, cooking in batches if necessary.

step 3
Place all of the cooked tofu back into the hot pan.

step 4
Add the soy sauce and maple syrup and cook until the sauce bubbles up and thickens into a glaze, being careful not to burn it. Set aside.

To assemble the sandwiches:

Place the tofu eggs and the maple tofu on the warm biscuits or on toasted English muffins and serve.

British Lemon Maple Scones with Clotted Cream

A
merican scones are different than British scones. When I used to picture a scone in my head, it was triangular, fairly large, dry, crumbly, and sweet—and tasty. Imagine my surprise when I did a Google image search and saw photo after photo of scones that looked like biscuits. After some research (thank you, Wikipedia), I realized that British scones are indeed different than their American counterparts. They're less sweet, smaller, and fluffier—and indeed fairly similar to the U.S. biscuit. I had to make some. And I had to eat them with clotted cream, even though I had never tried it.

British Lemon Maple Scones with Clotted Cream

Makes 12 to 15 two-inch scones

Clotted Cream

Whisk the margarine, Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese, and the powdered sugar together. It takes some elbow grease, but within a minute or two it will be a thick, smooth cream. Let it sit out to soften a little if needed to ease mixing. Set aside at room temperature; refrigerating will make the cream stiffer.